Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
some of these were fine games, they were not really post-retro, because they were more like
remakes with modern paint jobs.
The same can be said of retro collections: multiple retro games in a single package that gained
much popularity on the PS2 (e.g., Activision Anthology, Capcom Classics, Namco Museum).
While some of the collections offered remixed or arrangement versions of games with slight
upgrades, for the most part, they prided themselves on duplicating an exact classic gaming
experience on a console.
While other examples of post-retro games are bound to exist (send them to us if you have them),
it was not until the current generation of consoles that we started seeing games in this movement
taking shape. The real ground zero for these games was the emergence of the console
downloadable era on the Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Store, and WiiWare, as well as the viral,
Web Flash gaming explosion.
Here are some post-retro game examples you might be familiar with:
Geometry Wars
: One of the best, first examples of post-retro would be Geometry Wars.
First released on Xbox Live Arcade in 2007, this game was a smash hit that proved
marketable games could be created by a very small team and could be successful on
the Xbox Live Arcade. This game has a definite retro look and feel, but it adds a modern
control mechanism, hypnotic music, and other effects. It's one of the first and best
examples of the new post-retro movement. It was also the both a creative and financial
inspiration for many of the games on this list.
Space Giraffe
: Since we credit Jeff Minter as one of the founder's of this genre, it would
only be fair to add one of his own games to this list. Space Giraffe is an evolution of
Tempest 2000, and that might also be its downfall. While this game contains most of the
post-retro aesthetic (including actual 8-bit sounds from one of Minter's original computer
games), and while it is does contain some major changes to the Tempest template, its
gameplay is very close to a classic retro game. There is so much going on however, that
it becomes a very tough game to play rather quickly. That might explain its limited
appeal and slow sales as compared to some of the other games on this list.
Pac-Mac Championship Edition (CE)
: Pac-Man CE is an odd but addictive beast, and
it is a very good example of one strain of post-retro—the classic game reborn. This
game takes the main ideas of Pac-Man (eat all the dots; eat power-ups to kill ghosts),
and keeps them mostly unchanged. However, it changes the gameplay just enough by
adding morphing mazes and progressive gameplay to make it an entirely different game
than the original. You never finish a level in Pac-Man CE, you just finish a portion of a
level, and then the play field alters itself, and you keep going. This not insignificant
change to the core gameplay makes a wholly different and addictive game. You get the
sense while playing this game that this should have been the sequel to Pac-Man, but the
state of game design at the time just could not have spawned this game. This is an
important distinction for some of the best examples of post-retro: the sneaking feeling
that some of these games could have saved the golden age of video games.
